August 5th Game Day at Gameoloy AAR

We had a nice turnout of 8 members, plus cameos by Jimmy Hansen and Bruce Kirkaldy, for the August edition of our SoCalASL Game Day in Gameology.

Tim White's Americans fell to Bill Yuen's Germans in “Simple Equation”.

Dave Nicholas' Americans defeated Jim Svette's Germans in “Better Fields of Fire”. Because it was a quick finish, they rebooted with the same sides. In the second playing Jim's Germans defeated Nick's Americans.

Dan Plachta's Brits defeated Blair Bellamy's Germans in “Coudehard Cash”.

And I paired up with Eric Visnowski for “With Friends Like These”, with me taking the Vichy French in Morocco against Eric's Americans. The Americans get a company of second line infantry with low ELR backed by 4 M3A1 LT's. The have to take out four 105 ART protected by a couple of platoons of 1st line French troops, but have just 5.5 turns to do it. I wasn't much concerned about the American infantry; second line squads with an ELR 3… almost any shot in the open would send them running. The M3's were another story. The 105's can take them out on a 6, but the French have no other AT capacity aside from CC. I HIP'd all four guns, two behind the big stone building on the right, covered by one platoon, one in the middle and another on the far left, covered by a couple more squads. I HIP'd each MMG manned by a HS in two small stone buildings in the center, one to cover the approach to each building.

With time of the essence I knew Eric's attack would be aggressive, and it was. He sent his whole force against my right, supported by 3 of the tanks, and sent the 4th on a scouting mission on the left. On my first shot with one of the 105's on the left, I malf'ed the gun. And though my other gun on that flank got several hits, none of them penetrated. In the end, Eric was able to clear out both Guns on my right, but not before one of them was able to brew up one of the M3's with a rear shot and knock out another. My HIP MMG's did pretty serious damage to the American infantry racing across the board to take out the last two gun positions. One M3 overran the far left gun, breaking the gun crew and controlling the hex in the final turn. But the broken gun in the center held on. I had slipped a concealed squad in as support, and that unit held on when the crew broke and ran. Eric's last tank bogged on some wire, preventing it from bypassing my MG covering the last gun. Eric was able to slip a leader and a hero into the hex with the final gun. But the squad survived CC for the win on the final turn. What a fun and exciting game, and just about a close a finish as you can get! This is actually an old scenario that was re-published in Out of the Attic. If you haven't tried it, you definitely should. We had a blast, and we both felt we'd take either side.

Because our game got over fairly quickly, and Bill was free from his game with Tim, Bill and I took the Brits against Eric as the Vichy French in “Dayan to Meet You” from the latest Journal. I'd wanted to try this scenario since it came out, and last week Bill said the same, but neither of us had the Kakazu Ridge map handy. This week Bill brought his map, so we set this one up. This is an interesting and fast-playing scenario that starts out with one platoon on each side, and both sides get reinforcements for the first few turns. The Vichy troops are pretty weak. The Brits are elite, but they've got a lot of open ground to cover. Bill took the initial British group and went after the left-most building fast and hard. On turn 2 I took the follow-on troops and went at the remaining buildings. Bill got his DC in on the AT Gun at ground level of the first building, only to see it Dud. Later in the game I did the same with an elite squad on the right. That was first for me, having two DC's successfully placed and have them both Dud. It didn't look good for the Brits by turn 4. EV brought his cavalry in to reinforce the group of buildings on our right. But on turn 5 Bill was able to slip the 9-1 and a HS over and grab the bridge. Another squad and both Heroes followed close behind to obstruct Eric's counter-attack, which failed on turn 5, giving our Brits the win. This is a quick and fun scenario that is challenging for both sides. I'd definitely play it again.

We had our usual lunch at The Hat, and the survivors enjoyed a late dinner at Original Tommy's Burgers. It was another fun day and a great turn-out at Gameology!